not his actual memory (the super-villains are plotting their EXIT)

an entirely written in the morning blogpost

which (when horsemouth was working) was pretty much the way they used to be. 

but now - less so? 

yesterday a wander up the hill to martin and sylvia's (martin's gardening goes well). he picked up some leeks (promising vaguely to trade them for rhubarb). 

here the weather is on the change (allegedly). 

horsemouth was just off down the wormholes of memory. not his actual memory you understand (his is kind of like a goldfishes) but what facebook chooses to remember for him.

capitalism (much to horsemouth's chagrin) shows many signs of falling, but these are just profitable fluctuations for the super-rich, opportunities for looting of value on a massive scale (stocks go down BUY stocks go up again SELL retreat to secret island base with SWAG). 

because at some point the super-rich (having looted society to the brink of collapse) must find a defensible position to hide out with their ill-got gains. 

the super-villains are plotting their EXIT.  their retreat to their secret island bases.

meanwhile the rest of the world will carry on going to hell in a handcart. 

it is april 14th the day on which a unicorn manifested at a seance in the tale playing with fire by sir arthur conan doyle. 

each returning day (like old photographs)

as we roll towards may eve

so horsemouth is back from seeing alula down at carnival records in great malvern.  songs about summer, songs from the pilgrimage ways. a chat after (about musical kit and about bellringing)

but now his journey there.

by shanks's pony to pontrilas (across the common) - this took less time than horsemouth thought it would and he had more time than he thought he had (because the but doesn't go until 7.39am). thence by bus to hereford and (after a quick visit to the supermarket in search of provisions) by railway from hereford to great malvern, then a wander up the hill (horsemouth went the right way this time) to check the venue was where he remembered it being. 

then horsemouth pushed on further up the hill, 

past malvern books 

and past malvinha 

and up towards the hills, 

passing st. anne's well (drinking not recommended on account of bacterial contamination) and the hexagonal bar. 

on his way back down he met lots of younger fitter people clamouring for the heights. 

and back again with a stop off in hereford to try and buy books

accessions diary 

- les paradis artificiels baudleaire (50p amnesty malvern). discussion of the assassins, hashish, opium etc. so far horsemouth has only glanced at claude pichoise' introduction because it's in french a language horsemouth only reads imperfectly. but it is in a rather funky livre de poche 1965 edition. sadly horsemouth's copy in english is not here with him so he may have to proceed on with his bad french. 

- the stories of ronald blythe ronald blythe (£1 chazza hereford). thus he discovered every returning day: the pleasure of diaries (edited by ronald). 'these things are riveting... like old photographs.'

and then back to the bus station, bus to pontrilas, a walk, and then home.

then zoom beers with howard

so howard played horsemouth three tracks he has been working on (since wednesday when they last spoke). all three are good. john fromporto's omnichord gets an outing (at last), a drunken horsemouth reciting the lyrics to nuclear war by sun ra gets played (and reversed raw raelcun).  

howard has been reading about tony wilson. apparently one of his tutors at oxford was raymond culture is ordinary williams. 

the week after next or the week after that

ok so horsemouth's current plan is to be up early in the morning and out the door to malvern to see alula down. 

if he fails he will have to write more. 

he will walk to pontrilas (1 hr 6 mins) to get the bus into hereford and then the train to great malvern (and he will repeat this in reverse on the way back because there are no buses back from pontrilas to abbeydore on a saturday afternoon)

horsemouth is a bit short on funds until he gets back to the wen

his return to the wen is either happening the week after next (monday-ish to wednesday-ish). perhaps horsemouth can scrape it out to thursday-ish. there's a slight chance he'll be able to get a lift back (which would be handy) or start it slightly earlier. 

or he'll be back the week after that. 

in any event he has to be back in the wen for the night of wednesday the 30th april (may eve for those who know). 

the 16th 1857 for thoreau, no kilvert until the 14th. no kafka til the 19th. 

he's going to go and check his bank account and see if he's been paid all the gas and electric money he is owed. no he hasn't (email despatched). (ok now it's paid). 

ah-ha he's just spotted the black cat heading down the meadow. 

ok he thinks he's set the alarm on the phone (but he can't tell).  he's listening to webb dave's ambient dub show (and very nice and clanky it is too). 

ok he's up and has his coffee - wish him luck!

a day after (hail the material world)

this being an entirely written in the morning blogpost.

horsemouth is live from the bed at the edge of the world. it's a beautiful morning, a bit misty at ground level but otherwise a clear blue sky, not as cold as it has been. 

he's had one 'like' on the substack 'do you expect to ‘arrive’ by publishing? that is not easy’  article which (because it's a new toy) he's delighted by. 

a friend has published an actual physical fanzine, horsemouth thinks this a genius move, a collectable. other friends publish poetry chap books, have print-on-demand photobooks, release physical CDs and records etc. etc. 

hail the material world.   

yesterday a meeting on zoom of the cosa nostra followed up by a visit of his aunt and uncle. now horsemouth's uncle is an interesting man - he was a steel worker at llanwern and then he was in aluminium fabrication (here you see horsemouth posing with an authentic member of the industrial working class) but he has a lot to say and almost none of it is to horsemouth's political taste. after the visit a knackered horsemouth called off the bell-ringing and went for a restorative walk on the common (which is truly beautiful at the moment and not very muddy).

in the evening he watched  episode two of science fiction in the atomic age  on sky arts - the golden age  turns into the new wave, the exploration of outer space  becomes the exploration of inner space, the utopias fall into dystopia. (and most enjoyable it was). he wonders what outlaw bookseller would make of it (or bookpilled for that matter). 

because horsemouth watches very little  tv and watches it the old-fashioned way (when it's on) he will miss subsequent episodes. 

it looks like some members of the cosa nostra will be attending the annual meeting of the communal endeavour (it may even be filmed).

'I bought me a spy-glass some weeks since...'

 'I bought me a spy-glass some weeks since...

 I buy but few things, and those not till long after I begin to want them, so that when I do get them I am prepared to make a perfect use of them and extract their whole sweet.' 

- h.d. thoreau, journals, 10th april 1854. 

horsemouth admires thoreau's abstemious purchasing habits. they are kind of like his own (try and survive without it - and eventually give in). 

howard isn't off to alula down. he is off to loraine james instead. it's his easter break. 

horsemouth and howard had a zoom beer (1 bottle) yesterday. he's off this week and next week and the monday (and then it's back to the grind for him). 

howard has been fixing the potholes in his lawn (where the rain gets out). see his work in the garden is beginning to pay off.

he has not yet tried the alan bennett horsemouth gave him. they discussed some of the music howard has downloaded on bandcamp (as musicians of bremen). 

as a bonus horsemouth just spotted that someone from warsaw has downloaded musicians of bremen volume four. cheers. (wow. looks like they've bought the lot.) horsemouth is trying to work out what the connection is. they've also bought loads of in gowan ring. 

anyway so here are musicians of bremen's recordings in his (or her) collection.  ok rafal is a polish man's name (the polish version of raphael). 

horsemouth has placed the image on the other side of the page from his usual habit because of a poor match up with the image above (don't say he's not design conscious). 

fairplay mike amesbury (the downpuncher) did actually resign as MP. horsemouth is shocked - they normally cling on after every last penny of that MP's salary and allowances. and so there's going to be a by-election on may 1st in his old constituency of runcorn and helsby. 

but it looks like  it's going to go to reform. their candidate is former tory (and former independent also) sarah pochin. (to lose one party is a misfortune...)

it's the morning of the thursday. horsemouth is expecting his aunt and uncle to come and take his mum off to keep the ancestors' graves clean. horsemouth will be staying he's got a meeting for the cosa nostra at 1pm (he thinks). 

'the tiniest incident' (allied to life)

horsemouth is heartened by the response to his substack post the sunny uplands of the now. (a whole two likes on substack and a like for the graphic substack generated for it). 

the sunny uplands of the now was an account of a typical saturday for horsemouth out in the wilds. (he has to admit that the chickens have great comic potential). 

it is closer to his usual style of recording  juxtaposed events, quotations, readings. in  involving life and argument as thoreau puts it somewhere (and better) but that horsemouth cannot find at the minute.

ok no. he's found it;

'I do not know but thoughts written down thus in a journal might be printed in the same form with greater advantage than if the related ones were brought together into separate essays. they are now allied to life, and are seen by the reader not to be far-fetched. it is more simple, less artful.'  - henry david thoreau, journals, 27th january 1852. 

so additionally (rather than instead) he repeats a quote by fernando pessoa; 

'the wise man makes his life monotonous for then even the tiniest incident becomes imbued with great significance.' - fernando pessoa. the book of disquiet, fragment 20[56], undated. 

howard has expressed an interest in the alula down gig. this would mean a train out of london at the latest by 8.10am (if the stage times stay the same at 11am).  he's also talking about zoom beers tomorrow (which would be welcome). 

tomorrow. delivering the eggs. posting a letter. taking the recycling bin down the drive.  (plus the usual chicken and garden stuff).

horsemouth has just been up for a walk on the common. he's probably going to head back outside to sit in the sun and read. 

he's found a note to himself to check the existence of the 0920 bus on a wednesday. 

the thing with substack is that it does attempt to 'instantly associate all literary labour with pecuniary award' (or at least with the play money of likes on the internet). it does tap into that have typewriter must hustle variety of hucksterism. it is not that writing and capitalism (or indeed anything and capitalism) can be mutually indifferent in our society, a society where everything is judged by the great yardstick of financial success. 

but still horsemouth prefers the play money of the internet to the real thing. but would he if he genuinely thought there was a risk of getting paid?  

improved public transport would mean a lot to horsemouth

'I find i can criticise my composition best when I stand at a little distance from it, - when I do not see it, for instance, I make a little chapter of contents which enables me to recall it page by page to my mind, and judge it more impartially when my manuscript is out of the way. the distraction of surveying enables me rapidly to take new points of view. a day or two surveying is equal to a journey.' - thoreau, diary, 8th april 1854.

soon thoreau will discourse on the aeolian harp of the telegraph wires (april 12th) but for the moment he is with writing and composition again, as befits laurence stapleton's selections from it as a writer's journal. 

horsemouth was thinking about this. remember when you used to hand write essays and you would plan out the essay first  (and then write them according to that plan because you couldn't drag chunks of text about when a better way of making the argument occurred to you). 

diaries

well nothing marked by date from the book of disquiet. kafka back in april 16th (horsemouth believes). 7th april was the date of the 1861 census - the reverend william poole filled it in listing himself and three servants in his house. 

8th april was easter day in 1860. poole described it thus;

'again I have been allowed to keep our easter festival, to meet my brethren in god's house, and share with them the bread and the wine, in sure proof of the resurrection.'

no kilvert until the 10th. 

yesterday horsemouth wandered over into ewyas harold to pick up his mum's prescription (and wandered back again). 

it was another glorious day. things proceed well in the greenhouse. in addition to the 13 nasturtiums, 5 runner bean plants are now up, and 5 pea plants too. so far no sign of anything else (not that horsemouth would recognise it). out in the garden some sprouting signs of hope (but again horsemouth can't tell what they are yet). it is cold at night horsemouth does hope that won't kill anything off.

in the other greenhouse (in addition to the wounded chicken) there are a number of strawberry plants in pots - if these do well horsemouth will add some more. plenty grew in the old garden but they were inevitably eaten by the squirrels. horsemouth thinks that if he moves them into the greenhouse they may stand a chance.

currently no sign from the potatoes himself and his mother planted last week at the bottom of the old garden (but then it is early). 

horsemouth is looking at the prospects for getting to the alula down gig in malvern for record store day 

this year the gig is at about 11am. 

getting there

it being a saturday there is no 7.20am bus from abbeydore and the 9.20 will not get him there on time. to get himself there he thinks he will have to be up 6 am-ish, walk to pontrilas, get the 0725 but to hereford and then get the 0840 or 0940 train from hereford, the 0940 will get him in at 1012 enough time to walk up the hill for the gig.

the 0920 from abbeydore would mean he would not get him into hereford until 1012 and so he would not get him into malvern until 1112. 

horsemouth would probably get in a visit to the malvinha spring while he was there. 

coming back 

the buses back from hereford are at 1420, 1620 and 1820 (given the great malvern train times he is looking at about an hour layover in hereford before he can get the bus out)  but there are no buses pontrilas to abbeydore when he gets back local (so he would be walking so he would). 

as you can see improved public transport would mean a lot to horsemouth. 

'the great khan's atlas contains also the maps of the promised lands visited in thought but not yet discovered or founded: new atlantis, utopia, the city of the sun, oceana, tamoe, new harmony, new lanark, icaria...'

- italo calvino, invisible cities.